Computers have become highly integrated in the workforce, in the home, in mobile devices, and many other places. Computers can process massive amounts of information quickly and efficiently. Software applications designed to run on computer systems allow users to perform a wide variety of functions including business applications, schoolwork, entertainment and more. Software applications are often designed to perform specific tasks, such as word processor applications for drafting documents, or email programs for sending, receiving and organizing email.
In many cases, software applications are designed to interact with other software applications or other computer systems. For example, a client computer system might connect to a server in a datacenter to access a service. The service could provide simple or very complex functionality, and may be able to communicate with other services in the process. Such services are often referred to as software as a service or SAAS.
In some cases, it may be desirable for a developer of a service to offload the finalized service to another person or business for hosting. Such hosting businesses often have proprietary implementations in place, requiring the developer to add specific scripts or other code to enable communication between the hosting company's servers and the developer's service. Moreover, in many cases, hosting servers can only handle limited numbers of user-submitted services.